The Blind Fayth
by Xibalba
Summary: Chapter 4 up. What if Feira didn’t make it to Besaid, or made it somewhere odd like Luca? Where someone could make off with her for Yevon knew what? The possibilities made her shudder. PreFFX, femslash, please review!
1. Spirit

Chapter 1 –

Spirit

The unsung goddess of Dawn breathed life across the seas, rolling onto Kilika Island with each spray of ocean mist. Her brief moments of splendor were quiet and colorful, but were rejected as the tide pulled her back out to the mainland. As soon as feet hit floors and people began their prayers to Yevon. The all-seeing, all-hearing Yevon who did not make the sun rise, the waves crash, the moon glow. Yevon gave hope . . . and that was all that Spira needed. They could have been dancing in the dark, but they would be dancing for the hope Yevon brought.

Today in Kilika, the villagers would dance for Yevon as much as they pleased. All they needed was a word of confirmation, an acknowledgement that the spirit of Ifrit had awakened to someone's call, and they would dance.

Feira awoke to the blazing, glorious Kilikan sun that had risen only minutes earlier. Her eyes flew open, pupils fleeing into their dull gray-green caverns, and a smile etched itself onto her thin lips. Today was the day that she had been waiting for, training for. Living for.

"Are you awake, Feira?" her mother called from the outer room just beyond the makeshift curtain door. "The great spirit of Ifrit has no patience for lazy bums!"

"I'm up, I'm up," the summoner-in-training said brightly. "Let me wash up and stretch." She threw her cozy blankets off of her, watching them flop dejectedly at her feet, and at up on the side of her bed.

Her furniture was tinted the fierce hues of the island sun already, a single steady beam throwing itself diagonally across the floor. She stepped into it slowly, raking her fingers through her hair, and walked with composure to her water basin.

Humming one of her little songs, Feira's mother was bustling about by the fire, preparing her daughter's favorite breakfast of fried hawk eggs and fish strips, cooked cruelly in fish oil. It may have been the last day this mere teenager of 19 would rise from her sun-bathed cocoon with familiar bedhead, eat a fresh breakfast gathered by her father, and go about her cheerful day.

_Today I become a summoner,_ Feira thought as she dried off her face and then stretched her arms above her head. _Everyone will know where Kilika is, and flock here to erect a statue to . . ._ "High Summoner Feira Enlot!" she exclaimed, charging through the curtain with her arms waving.

"Feira, that is _no_ way for a summoner to act," her mother sighed.

Embarrassed and restless, Feira eased herself into a seat at the small dining table out front. "Sorry, mom," she said meekly to the floor. "Um, where's Dad?"

"He went to go visit Arken and Nero for a bit," her mother replied, setting down the full plate in front of her. "He's so nervous, he forgot where they lived for a minute."

Just the mention of those two names brought a smile back to Feira's face with new life. Arken and Nero had been chosen willingly as her guardians for her summoner pilgrimage, since they had lived in Kilika their entire lives and trained under the monks. The three of them were inseparable and complemented each other–Nero was always clumsy, Arken strict, and Feira the peacekeeper between them.

Originally, some monks from Djose were to come, but she refused their company. Her friends were the best warriors in town, and their devotion to her was more than just a blind arrangement by tradition. She much preferred to struggle through this with friends than with strangers who could just leave her.

All this she pondered as she ate, staring absently out the window at the sea. She would never again see the water so calm and inviting–not when she traveled by monstrous boats that tore the glassy surface apart.

_But this is to bring peace,_ she assured herself. _To bring the Calm . . . to defeat Sin once and for all._

_Spira is counting on me._

When she finished, she changed into her favorite robes that sang of her love for the earth and brought out the luster in her unruly brown hair. Unlike the colorful robes of the monks and the summoners before her, hers were the color of sand with a light brown sash about her waist. They gave off the feeling of being a chameleon, or a sexless vessel for the bidding of the temple.

Few would look at her as more than a beacon of hope. Few would love her for more than what she stood for, and many would hate her if she failed. She hadn't heard of a summoner who had come back in failure; many just perished along the way, and their stories went untold by the disapppointed denizens of Spira.

Just as she was about to leave, her father stumbled into the hut with a grin on his face. "Daddy!" she exclaimed, flying over to him and hugging him tightly. Her robes flew around them, losing his midsection in their folds as he embraced her in return. Though he looked disheveled and tired, he nuzzled the top of her head and held her close. "How are you doing, gorgeous?"

"Fine," she chirped. "We were just about to leave."

For a moment his mouth moved every-which-way soundlessly, trying to think of something to say. It had just dawned on him that he had wasted precious time by being out, and now he was about to send her into the hands of the fayth. "Oh," he finally sounded, trying to keep his smile stable as he pulled away. "Well, I don't want to make you late. The monks. They . . . t-they are . . ."

The air in their house suddenly became unbelievably tense, emotions jerking around inside of bodies that refused to let them out. Feira was the first to break out of the frozen scene, putting her hands on his broad shoulders. "They're waiting, I know."

"Yeah." His lips thinned out into a grim line. "So are your friends. Arken and Nero. I just talked to them."

Again, no one said anything, and the summoner filled the void that seemed to be pushing them all apart. "Mommy told me. Are you okay? You normally don't choke up over things." She pushed his hair out of his tanned face and then pushed up the colorful tie that he had on his forehead. Though her father was an aging man, he was still very much alive and had a head of hair that could barely be tamed. Its antics amused her now, but he didn't seem to mirror it.

"Feira, you don't seem to acknowledge what you are stepping into," he said hoarsely but firmly. "Yevon has stopped seeing you as a child years ago, when you . . . accepted this path. Today you're going to be _on_ that path, no longer just talking about it. This will be your . . . your life. Do you understand?"

Her eyes froze over, her face concerned and confused. What was suddenly wrong about being excited? Was she supposed to be sad? "I do, daddy," she replied quietly. "I want to do this, even knowing what it means. I'm doing this for Spira. For you." She turned to her mother, who had been biting her lower lip. "I'm doing this especially for you, Mom, because I know Ifrit will accept _me,_" she added.

At that, her mother put her face in her hands and began to sob loudly. Feira stepped forward and embraced her, the folds of her robes protecting her mother as they had her father. They swung around gently like wings, settling at their sides.

"With a head as thick as yours, Ifrit should notice your fiery confidence," her father said with a crack of a smile, resting his arms on both of his girls.

"My head isn't thick," Feira mumbled into her mother's shoulder.

"Perhaps just thick enough that you might be late to meet up with everyone," he said quickly after her. "Come on, ladies. Let's talk as we walk over."

Her parents accompanied her to the temple, where monks bid them both a good morning. The knowing voids stood steady in their eyes, and her mother gave an intimidated whimper.

"Mother, it's all right now," Feira whispered with a small smile. "This is what we wanted."

Her parents would go no further up the stone stairs, knowing the climb would just be that much worse in their age and their collective mental state. Sensing that they had stopped against their will, she turned around slowly and faced them brightly.

At seeing the sunlight break across her daughter's face, firm with youth but determined with the rising of a woman, her mother burst into tears again. "Yevon protect you, child!" she bawled.

As though nobody had spoken to her, Feira trotted halfway up the first set of stairs, then turned on a heel and looked upon her parents with pride. "_I _will protect Yevon," she exclaimed, fists clenched loosely in determination. "I'll see you both when I return."

They exchanged confused glances as she turned back and began ascending the crumbling steps as she had for years. The sandy stone felt natural to her sandal-clad feet, a muscle memory that would soon mean nothing. The heart of the summoner would guide her feet to Zanarkand.

_And no farther,_ she thought grimly, stopping at last meters closer to the sun. It greeted her gently at the threshold of its manmade shrine, protected by monks who served this being called Yevon rather than the blazing sun itself. It granted Kilika its blessings regardless.

She barely saw the humble temple in her haze, but she saw her guardians, who were waiting ahead for her patiently. Arken was smiling; it was a rare occasion, but rarer still was when a sleepy town had something this large to be proud of. Just as she was to be one of Spira's beacons of hope, Arken's smile was a small beacon to her–it was a sign that something was going right.

"Hail, Lady Feira," Arken said gruffly despite her smile. She was only a year older than Feira, but she looked rather haggard and unkempt. It was not exactly her duty to care, she told herself. "Are you rested?"

"Yes, very well," the summoner replied. "You two must be bored all day, waiting for me and now you have to wait for me again. Aren't _your_ lives exciting," she said sarcastically with a small giggle.

Arken shifted her weight to one leg and clasped her hands in front of her. "They are," she said blandly, giving her fellow guardian, Nero, a nudge. "Still asleep?"

"Yes," he murmured with one eye open. "I had a vision."

Nero was infamous within the temple, if not all of Kilika itself, for his "visions"-- dreams that kept him awake in the smothering blue-blackness of the early morning, and dulled to haunting whispers in his mind with the quiet rising of the sun. These visions were never good ones, and grossly incorrect. Four years ago, Maha, one of the women, was overjoyed to be pregnant with her third child; Nero, then 19, warned her that she would have an awful accident and would not keep the child. She turned out a healthy boy who, now shedding his innocence like dead skin, was a brat with a slingshot. He lived right next door to Nero and, with his pebbles breaking every piece of glass he could find, resented the prediction of his death.

Knowing each outcome of each vision, all of which were vividly detailed for how wrong they were, Arken's smile turned sly. "What was it like?" she asked coyly.

A violent shiver seized his lanky body. "I dare not say it in front of Lady Feira," he sighed. "I don't want to discourage her."

Speaking of which, the summoner coughed into her hand, and her guardians turned to face her. "Wake me up when you guys are ready to go in!" she laughed. "I could have enjoyed my breakfast a little more, slept a little later . . ."

"A thousand apologies, Milady," Nero said, dipping low into a bow. His reddish-brown hair bowed forward as well, standing lopsidedly at attention on his head until he threw himself back into place. "Let us go inside."

The three headed into the squat building protected by the forest's lush overgrowth, from the young morning sun into the reverent candlelight. For a moment, they were blinded by the transition; in the darkness, a silence overcame them that made them feel isolated in a very, very small room. They knew how large the antechamber they stood in was, and how large each chamber beyond was. Except for the Cloister of Trials itself, a fiery mystery to all except summoners. Not even the monks could say for sure what blazed on the other side of the heavy, ornamented doors.

Even with her eyes useless, green and glazed in the darkness, Arken half-turned to her fellow guardian. "Nero. Why so quiet now? You were so excited, waiting for Lady Feira…"

"I-I'm sorry," he sputtered. "I'm nervous for her. Ifrit's fayth is a . . . fierce one. Rambunctious. What if it—"

"Nero," she interrupted. "The fayth are kind to those who pay them tribute, to those who want to see this world free of Sin. They will accept her." Sight came back again, and her face was thinking about a smile. Wherever that thought had come from, it had hopped to Feira's face, which was turned to Arken. "Don't fret for her."

"Okay . . . by Yevon, I don't want to be in your shoes, Feira."

She turned to face them both now, the candlelight arrested in spikes in her blue eyes. "I do. Let's enter."

Side by side, they passed through the dim circular foyer and began their slow ascent up the stairs to the Cloister of Trials. They turned their backs on bowing and praying heads, on blessings and some soft weeping. Together they entered wholly unaware, still innocent. Still able to turn back and go on living with the waves and the sun, watching life bloom slowly.

The ornate doors shut behind them, urging shadows in along and decidedly leaving that innocence to wither on the steps.


	2. Circle

Chapter Two –  
Circle

A quiet dusk held Kilika as it set, coating each bland hut in marvelous hues of red, orange, and pink. Despite the silent brilliance, the waves below rolled as though afraid of piercing the invisible, heavy veil that covered the island. People moved about like ghosts, seamlessly lighting their torches and then gliding back into their huts. Not a single board of the serpentlike walkway creaked beneath feet as they usually did, giving Kilika its rustic little charm. That charm had faded for now in how everyone was so unaware of the magnificence around them, concerned more with their own lives and anxiety.

The distant _fwump_ of a blitzball sounded upon a plank at last, and a group of children scurried after it in their bare feet. Not even they could bring themselves to let loose and shriek with laughter, letting themselves be known before night arrested all that boisterous energy.

Deep within the temple, past the pulsating spheres set into place in the Cloister of Trials, Nero and Arken waited in the disconcerting darkness. They knew that only a pair of doors separated them from Feira, who was bargaining with the fayth for its assistance. What they didn't know was what manifested itself to their summoner, or even if she was just talking to thin air.

Regardless of what lay beyond, they could pry open the doors at any point if there was trouble. But as though from above them, from within the ceiling itself, the Hymn of the Fayth repeated quietly in a solemn young man's voice. He sang breathlessly.

Nero lay on the cool floor with his hands folded on his forehead, his eyes fluttered closed. Arken sat up against one of the statues, arms crossed tightly. There was a slight draft coming from somewhere unknown, and it chilled her even through her long sleeves. Normally she was hot in the island weather, decked in turtlenecks of black and deep blues, and slacks that never seemed to be washed. Even if she cared about how she looked, she was conservative in a way that made summoners look almost whorish in their flowing garments.

"What do you think she's saying to it?' Nero finally asked.

Arken regarded him quizzically, but his eyes were still closed. "I don't think she has much to _say,_" she replied, "but a lot to ask. A lot to offer in exchange for Ifrit's power."

"She's been in there for hours," he sighed, arching his back. "I hope she can do this."

She rolled her eyes. "What makes you think she can't?"

A silence passed between them like a cloud lolling overhead, dark and heavy with assumptions, but doing no harm. At last he said, as though she hadn't asked him such a biting question, "My vision last night disturbed me. The fayth of Ifrit turned out to be a snake who engulfed Feira whole, no matter how much she begged it." He opened his eyes and sat up abruptly. "Do you think I would have told her that right before she went inside?"

"No. I didn't think it would be that violent. Got something vile on the brain?"

Nero simply snarled at her; she grinned and averted her gaze to the quivering shadows of the looming statues.

Within the eerie stillness of the chamber, kneeling over a fetal version of Ifrit's aeon form, Feira sat smiling with small triumph. "So you will help me?"

The young man, who looked weary and sleepless with his eyes sunk deep within his skull, nodded slightly. "I will lend myself to you, summoner. And you will give me what you have offered now in exchange?"

"Yes."

A small, concentrated flash of red light flew across Feira's skull, as though it were a needle striking her brain. Her entire body tensed up, but only a small tic in her eye showed the trauma. "At times, you will feel rage so strong that the only way out of it is to fight. To claw your way out like a fiend," said the fayth coldly. "And if you feel this rage while you struggle for survival, you will think of me. And I will come."

"Yes."

"But if you are simply lying awake at night, writhing with anger at some injustice in your life, I will say nothing. This silence is the consequence of our deal . . . this is understood?"

"Yes."

Only a few more minutes passed, minutes that seemed like hours, before a strange grinding noise filled the chamber. They looked around in bewilderment until they realized it was coming from the doors of the fayth's chamber, and a few pale digits emerged from the deep shadows to separate them. But they couldn't do it alone.

A croak rose from the abyss, sounding primal at first but then turning into a familiar moan. "A-Arken? Could you . . . help me?"

Arken got to her feet and bounded swiftly up the stairs, plunging her arms into the unknown and catching the tired form of Feira within them. She let herself fall into Arken's chest, barely aware of the odd sensation of being pulled out entirely onto the top stair. Though her eyes were staring at some random point beyond her guardian's face, her smile was well-directed. "I did it," she breathed.

Nero, who was suddenly standing raptly at attention, cheered and stamped his feet on the floor. "I knew you could do it!" he called, applauding lightly.

He ascended the stairs and slipped an arm beneath Feira to help her up. Arken did the same on her other side, and they walked side-by-side towards the exit, colliding at the hip frequently. The silent chambers held the ghosts of their embarrassed and amused laughter, no longer protected by the Hymn of the Fayth.

As they walked out of the Cloister of Trials much more easily than they had come to gain access, Feira turned in her supportive arms to regard the closing doors. "The design on the doors," she said, somewhat slurred and as though she were missing half of her sentence. But then she added, "It looks like two people kissing, doesn't it?"

Arken and Nero craned their heads back to look. "I don't see anything," Nero sighed. But Arken tilted her head to one side, her hair blending with Feira's. "I sort of see it," she remarked. "They look _about_ to kiss. Like they're scared." She set herself upright, unmoved. "Then again, it looks straight up like a spider."

Nero cackled. "You don't have much of an eye for art, woman. I'm sure it . . . it represents something sacred in Yevon."

"You don't have a mind for anything else outside of Yevon," Arken quipped as they headed back for the lift.

When they at last emerged from the Cloister of Trials, the crowd that had seen them off had grown tenfold. It seemed as though all of Kilika was there to rest their eyes upon the new summoner, and to cheer and bow for her. They parted like a bland sea of tired but eager faces so she could make her way to the door, now with less support from her guardians than before. The crowd followed her out into the night, squeezing anxiously through the pale stone steps to get closer to her.

Even more people were out in the temple's courtyard, lining the small steps as though the first summoning were an arena sport. Feira found her place on the strong glass dome in the middle, standing mere inches away from a roaring flame that refused to die, and her guardians stood separate from her on the solid floor.

"Lady Feira," the high priest said kindly, edging towards her from the crowd. "You have communed with the most temperamental of spirits, fiercer than even the great and noble Bahamut. Has Ifrit chosen you?"

She nodded with a small, humble smile. "It has. I require my staff."

A warrior-monk stepped forward, not stepping on the dome, leaning towards her with staff balanced in both hands. She took it from him, keeping it level and horizontal, and waited for him to receed.

Suddenly, a hush fell over the courtyard like a wave of stolen breath; Feira was twirling her staff slowly in her hands, a motion she had practiced with wooden spoons and sticks before, picking up speed until flames began to trail from it. The flames fanned outwards, forming a thick circle in front of her, and she kept spinning for the life of the blazing hoop until a glyph broke out like a plague beneath her feet. She was gone from sight as a rocky prison of cool earth and swirling flames rose into the air, containing the beastly and bunched-up form of Ifrit. Its eyes sprang open wildly, sensing the presence of the summoner who stood on top of the floating prison, and it burst out down to earth for the first time in years. Its claws hit the dome, scratching the glass; they would have pierced right through to the eternal flame if desired.

Feira drifted serenely back down amid the disintegrating pieced of Ifrit's confinement, landing on its hunched shoulder to quell the power it shook with.

The crowd stood in awe of the beast who crouched in front of them–this was the fayth who sang to them, lit their torches, gave brightness to the sun. They bowed reverently, praying and whispering "praise be to Yevon" almost fearfully. Feira climbed down from its arm, standing before it unafraid, and patted its nose gently. The fearsome look on its face did not subside, but it tilted up towards her hand with affection. Then, to counteract its dramatic appearance, it whisked away into the summoner's chest as a little fiery wisp.

Arken marveled at the scene from her distance, taking careful note that Nero was bowing and doing his signs and prayers as well. He looked moved to tears, while she had just bowed once in respect. She felt almost the outcast for it, but well . . . the teachings of Yevon had never quite enraptured her. She saw a lot of things wrong with the hierarchy, the marriage of religion and military power.

To her, as a warrior monk, the Crusaders were a collective slap in the face. As if to say, "You're not good enough to serve the world; protect the sleepy temples instead. You know, in case Sin comes all the way inland to destroy them."

She scoffed. Sin had _never_ attacked a temple directly, though perhaps it had once come near one. She had no idea why Sin attacked what or where it did, but it attacked ships most frequently as it waited, patiently but hungrily, for more prey.

And Feira was . . .

"Well done, Lady Feira," she said, embracing her. Her reverie had broken just soon enough to notice that Feira had been heading right for her to escape the crowd, who was moving in excitedly to praise her, bless her, ask her. Warn her.

Feira lifted her head above Arken's shoulder, having to stand on tiptoe a bit to do so. "Thank you, Arken," she said to her back. "I would like to rest for a bit before we leave. Can you--?"

"Crowd control is my specialty," Arken replied with a smile. She opened one eye to see Nero staring at them as they hugged; she broke away with a curious hotness spreading over her neck and filtering into her face. She turned to the crowd and began to ward them away from Feira, to keep her mind off of whatever was making a blush creep up her like a hot plague.

The summoner was edging her way back to one of the small chambers off of the courtyard, guarded by Nero who gave a thumbs-up to Arken once she was safely inside. Arken smiled a weary smile in return, and lowered her arms to the crowd. They stood milling about, talking amongst themselves like excited schoolchildren.

A broad, skinny hand placed itself on her arm, and she turned to face Feira's father smiling in his own tired way. "Hello Arken," he said somewhat cheerfully.

"Hello, Mr. Enlot," she said with a small bow of respect. "Congratulations are in order. Feira has made you very proud."

"Yes, yes she has," he commented distantly. "I would like to congratulate you as well; you've become a full-fledged warrior monk recently, I hear? After—what, 11 years of training?"

"Actually, 12," she corrected him. "But thank you."

He looked at a point past her, at first as though he weren't interested in talking to her . . . but then she realized that he must have been very distracted. He had every reason to be proud, but every reason to mope. Were she not in charge of Feira's well-being from now on, she would be sulking in the other chamber.

"Arken," he said finally, more quietly than before, "Where are your parents?"

Her eyes went solid with something tangible, like fear of the unknown and a flash of anger at not knowing the entire story. She didn't know enough to tell him for certain, but what came out in a controlled stream of typical Arken melancholy, "My mother died when I was very little, and I never knew my father."

"A shame," Feira's father murmured in reply. "You seem like a girl . . . a woman who would have known her father well. Seen the world from his back as he crawled around on hands and knees with you."

That anger was gone, as was the steely darkness behind her eyes. A playful grin now dominated her face as she asked, "What makes you think that?"

"Oh, I don't know . . . you're a warrior, not a summoner or acolyte."

"My mother was a warrior monk," she lied, wanting to instantly take it back the second the dumb words spilled forth. But it was too late, and she cocked her weight to one hip as she spun her tale. "She guarded the halls of Macalania; she loved the snow and the forest beyond. She gave birth to me in the Thunder Plains" (which was another big fat lie; she didn't know where she was born, either) "and returned here with me when I was an infant. I don't know how long she raised me here, but she left to guard a summoner she had known well. The two of them died when Sin attacked their ship."

Arken paused to let her story sink in, see just how credible it was. Sin was a seafaring monster, and many pilgrimages and shipments alike had ended in the splinters of a ship. As she watched Feira's father shake his head in pity, his face trying to decide what emotion to display to the guardian who had the emotional range of a spoon, she thought of the morbid humor of it.

It was a little-known fact that a few people, excommunicated or separate from Yevon, worshipped nature in a very primitive way. The sun, the moon, the trees, the ocean. They saw the ocean as the giver of life, a controller of cycles in the way that Spira was a cycle of death and rebirth. How awful it was that Sin, a whale-like creature, caused the most grief to Spira by ripping seafarers apart. It sure gave the nature worshippers a pause.

"I'm . . . very sorry to hear that, Arken," he said at last, putting his hands on her shoulders. "It has been hard to see you without real parental guidance. But the monks seem to have done well instead."

"For a warrior, it's perfect," she sighed. "I have to go prepare for the trip with Nero and those down at the dock. If you'll excuse me . . ."

He nodded his head as she slid out of his grip and made her way to Nero, who was standing guard outside of the chamber Feira occupied. "Your hand is not on your sword," she said gruffly.

At first he fumbled for the hilt of his light sword that hung at his hip, but then he turned away from it and frowned. "Who is there to cut down? Little old ladies?"

"They're damn dangerous," she snickered. "Is everything on board?"

He shook his head. "I have to fetch the last of the small trunks."

"Well, do that now," she huffed. "I'll stand watch here; you go secure everything with the crew. Come back when you have news."

Nero never took orders from her very well, being her peer as a guardian and three years older than she. A brief glimpse of his bitter side shone through when he gave a terse mock salute and walked off briskly. She shrugged it off and replaced him on the wall, her hand behind her on her broad oddly-shaped sword.

Many things about her were odd, she decided then. Most people in Kilika had been there for years, at least an entire generation. She had no idea what had become of her parents, why the monks never told her, and why they had always sort of excluded her. She felt . . . faithless, almost, and that they saw right through to it no matter how much she prayed or spent her days in the temple.

Her weapon of choice set her apart from the other monks even more, something she had always seen propped up against a wall and was one day strong enough to wield. Its appearance was as much a mystery as her own had been, and the way it curved like a question mark represented the enigma. With a weapon so strange, and a wielder so proficient, no one really dared to ask questions.

Feira probably knew best about her . . . and at that moment, with that peculiar thought, she turned abruptly and rapped on the chamber door lightly. "Lady Feira? May I come in?"

"Oh!" she heard from within, then a patter of feet to the door. It opened for her to a smiling summoner who didn't look the least bit exhausted. "I thought Nero was standing there!"

"He went to the docks to make sure they're ready," Arken replied. "You look alert. You weren't resting for very long."

Feira canted her head to one side. "I wasn't _really_ tired."

Arken looked at her for a minute, how much a little ceremony and a day communing with the spirits had changed her. Just this morning she knew of how Feira was careening around her house cheerfully, and now she stood with dignity before her fate. It was something Arken couldn't help but admire.

The summoner added, with a sudden tremor, "I'm scared, Arken."

"Of . . . of what?"

"Of this. The pilgrimage, the stories of Sin, everyone counting on me to defeat Sin. There hasn't been a Calm in 20 years! Since you and I were born!"

Arken frowned. Not in disappointment, but in seeing her dear friend this way. Despite this, the coldest words came out: "You knew of all this when you accepted the training and the whole process that led you here."

Uncontrollably, without even being shocked that her own guardian had said it, Feira thrust her face into her hands and began to sob. Arken sighed, wishing she could undo that moment and shut her own mouth. _So much for a good start to a journey, _she thought miserably.

"Lady Feira, I'm sorry," she said, embracing her tightly. It was a different embrace from the congratulatory and supportive hugs she had given every once in a while. It was stronger, holding still the smaller girl within, begging with all the silent prayers in the world for forgiveness.

Feira stood on tiptoe slightly to raise her chin to Arken's shoulder, resting it there and encircling her arms around her waist. She would barely notice the shiver that ran through Arken, and instead bring herself closer.

Her eyes closed as she drifted off to someplace where the crackling torches and the dwindling crowd outside didn't matter; here there was only her and Arken, who had nudged the chamber door closed behind them with her foot. Perhaps she couldn't take back her words, but she could give Feira a different word—her vow to make this pilgrimage better than she imagined. No sadness, no looming threat of death.

"Oh," Feira sighed, "and I get seasick very easily. I don't want to leave just yet."

Arken smiled a private smile; the Feira she knew was back already, in all her ladylike innocence. She gently squeezed her waist and said, "Of course, Lady Feira. We can stay a bit longer."


	3. Sin

Chapter Three –

Sin

The sky over the S.S. Liki that evening was a horrendous blue-black shade of deep nightfall, splotched with purple remains of twilight that looked like new bruises. Beneath it, the waves were choppy and dark, crashing against the sides in small but quick bursts. Through the natural chaos the lone ship sailed in its manmade silence, in reverent fear of the current and of what possibly swam beneath.

Arken stood against the starboard railing, watching the weather worsen. The clouds were moving faster than before, as though in a hurry to go hang over some other bit of sky. Someplace she couldn't see with her pensive eyes, couldn't drown herself in misery with them to hear. The wind stayed with her, flicking her hair back and forth across her face.

She was thinking about what Feira's father had asked her about her parents . . . and how she had blatantly lied. As far back as her memory could swim, her eyes had just opened to the warm sights of Kilika. Her first memory was being _alive._ Clothed in the cumbersome garments of Yevon's youngest devotees, told of the smothering love of Yevon and its unending hope. That was all she'd felt by the temple's many teachings and criticisms: smothered.

Nero had grown up with both of his parents, loving and overprotective even as he lived separate from them in the temple. Feira had both of hers, quiet but supportive in their own ways. Arken's cries and girlish shrieks had bounced off of nothing but temple walls . . . was she that much worse off without parents?

Where _was_ her father? How _had_ her mother died?

"Arken," Nero called uneasily, "you should come down here for a minute. Feira looks positively ill."

Just the thing to break her from her dark reverie—Feira's seasickness. Instead of dwelling on it, she pushed herself from the railing and swept below deck, where crew members were trying not to stare for too long at the summoner. Feira had seated herself in a corner, arms clutched tightly over her stomach. She leaned left, then sat upright and slouched, then leaned right, and back up again. She was like a ragged metronome who moaned instead of ticked. "Oh, you guys," she blurted, "don't look at me like this."

Her guardians rushed over to assist her, but she ignored their presence looming over her and stood on her own. "I-I'm fine. I can make it up on my own."

She braced herself up against the wall—more like threw herself back on it—and planted her feet on the floor to stop herself from sliding. The world was spinning around her wildly, and her dizziness made her believe that she could see behind her. For a moment, she could see the ceiling and the floorboards all in the same glance. But her head hung so low that no one saw her eyes rolling around, trying miserably to focus on one point.

Is this what her entire pilgrimage would be like? Nausea, dizziness, never able to see any part of it but the temples she had to enter? And even then, when she reached the fayth, she would have to sit and bargain. She would have to journey north, selling a piece of her soul that she could possibly bear to part with. She wasn't sure if there would be any life left in her eyes by the time they scaled Mount Gagazet.

"You may go back outside now," she said, trying to disguise her weakness as her new quiet demeanor. "I'm sorry to have alarmed you."

Arken shifted her weight to one hip, unconvinced. But Feira was as stubborn as she was, and butting heads was not something she wanted to do right now. Especially when Feira's head was spinning. "Are you certain, Lady Feira?"

"Yes," she breathed, her eyes losing focus on the floor. "Actually, I would like some fresh air. Can I come with you?" And to make sure that Arken knew she was addressing her, she cleared her head and face and looked up.

"Of course," her guardian replied, and took her gently by the hand. Feira feigned confidence and stability once again, following behind and squeezing into the narrow staircase back up towards the deck. Once the clean night air hit her face, she actually did feel a bit better; the lump of sickness that had settled in her chest was beginning to dissolve, and she didn't feel as disheveled as before.

She noticed, however, that the hairs on her arms were all standing at attention towards each other, and she clamped her hands down over them. Arken noticed it too, and the vigorous rubbing that ensued. "Here," she said, and swung her damp woolen cloak around the summoner's shoulders. Feira tried to hunch away from it, but it just draped over her all the more perfectly. She very well couldn't shake it off and mumbled, half to Arken and half to the floor behind her, "Thank you."

Adjusting it, her guardian commented, "You look like a beggar hiding within the shadows of Luca's ports. Shall I get you a little cup to rattle for change?"

"Oh, you're terrible," Feira giggled.

Nero's heavy footsteps could be heard back in the cabin as he pestered the crew about destination, how long it would take . . . He could often be an annoying person to travel with, even when it was venturing around Kilika Island itself. It had once been his suggestion to take Feira out for real-time combat practice, and yet he was the one flailing around in anxiety. Frankly, Arken had been surprised he hadn't begun to look for edible berries and set up camp like a castaway.

This was the man who had been quite fierce in his early teenage years, now dissolved down to this worried shell that bore all the Yevon symbols. What had the monks done to him?

"I spoke to your father earlier before we left," Arken said to break the silence. Feira looked at her so quickly her head might have snapped off. "He's very proud of you. He asked me about my own parents."

"But you don't know about them," Feira said, plain as day.

"I know, that's what I told him," she replied hesitantly. "Well, I know the very vague outline, but nothing more than a missing father and a dead mother. Not very much to work with, so he just continued talking about how proud he was of you."

That flickering, demure smile came onto the summoner's face. "He seemed very sad this morning."

"Well, he was letting you go," Arken offered in return, idly picking a thread off of the cloak. It was all she could do to keep herself from falling apart, or fidgeting out of nervousness. She wasn't about to tell Feira about her lie. "Proud as he is, well . . . we can't go back to Kilika."

That smile fell like a dead weight. Feira's voice sunk to a miserable monotone. "I know."

Arken's brow furrowed and she shut her eyes tight, knowing that they had averted their gazes from one another on purpose. What was going _wrong_ with her today? She had never had such strained talks like this before, and all of a sudden she was making Feira cry and reminding her of how hard this would be. It was the very last thing she wanted to do, but it was all she was doing.

_Are you right in your head?_ she asked herself. _A guardian doesn't just protect from fiends. You're here to make sure she doesn't lose her fool mind and back out. You have to send her marching on. Just marching to Zanarkand._

_God, what's worse—forcing her head or being an asshole to her?_

"I meant to say, you can't go back because your parents wouldn't let you out of their sight again." She tried to grin. "Or even Nero's, for that matter. They dote on you as much as your own do."

"Yeah." Feira's voice was still empty. She sat down on the deck and leaned all the way forward to put her chin on her knee. "I'm sorry, Arken, I've been in a lousy mood since even before I got sick." A few moments passed before she added, "You know those two that were supposed to come from Djose?"

"Yes. The monks."

"One of them wasn't really a monk. He was a summoner from there, like me, who had just been initiated. Seems as though he just wanted easy passage down to Kilika and Besaid." Her face, which had been blank in its solemnity, now darkened and contorted with fury. She had to grit her teeth. "They hinted at me _marrying_ him, and _accompanying_ him on _his_ pilgrimage." The words were spat with such emphasis that Arken gave a start; they were like venom leaking from Feira's lips, obscenities in their own right. "You know, let him take the credit for defeating Sin."

Arken shook her head in disgust and sat beside her, raising the cloak up her tense shoulders. "No wonder you were so adamant about him not coming."

"Damn right!" she practically shouted, completely forgetting her new demeanor. The old Feira, saucy and excitable, had climbed onto the boat furtively. Now she was showing her face, and Arken tried to suppress a smile.

They sat there for a good fifteen minutes with a lighter air about them, perhaps thinking separate thoughts. Or the same thoughts. Arken was just about to ask Feira if she remembered a fond bit of their childhood, but the beginning croak of her voice had been drowned out by Nero calling to them: "Lady Feira, Arken, get below deck. A storm is coming."

Arken looked up at the sky, which she hadn't noticed getting a whole lot darker since she came back out here. It was not dark with quiet nightfall, but it was alive and rumbling with something much more horrible.

_But I want to see the storm!_ A voice rang out in her head. It sounded vaguely like her, except squeaky and naïve. "What gave you that impression?" she said as she stood and turned around, smirking.

"Oh, I don't know," he sighed. "The putrid sky, maybe?"

"I'm coming," she sneered. "Let's go, Lady Feira." She stood swiftly and gently helped the summoner to her feet, guiding her carefully along the slippery deck.

The second they gripped the railings of the stairs, they were thankful they did—the ship gave an awful lurch, pounding them into the corridor walls. Feira moaned much like the ship did and darted past Arken, swooping recklessly into the bathroom and slamming the door behind her.

Arken muttered a few choice words and walked down by herself, resuming her place next to Nero. Compared to the contemplative silence above, this place was again noisy with the chocobo-powered engines and the uneasy stirrings of the crew.

"Lady Feira, are you all right?" Nero called, knocking lightly on the door.

"Go away, I don't want my guardians to see me like this!" she practically yelled. And so he left her alone, not wanting to incur the wrath of Feira. And the attached Ifrit. Arken shrugged, somewhat surprised—it wasn't like her to shut the door on everyone else, but she was ill again. And Feira had never much liked enclosed spaces.

When she was about 10, she had once fallen into a fishing boat that, untethered to the docks, drifted underneath the planks and trapped her with about half a foot of breathing space. It was only until she began to panic, pounding her fists near the feet of those passing by, that Nero came to her rescue in the water. He hadn't even heard the monks talking about him being her guardian by that point, but he had saved her.

_That's the only time I can remember saving her from something,_ he thought.

In fact, Nero had no idea what made him such a good guardian or warrior monk other than his weapon proficiency. He was a nervous and easygoing young man, foolish and gullible at times, with hardly any power of persuasion. Yevon had turned him from a reckless young child into a warrior who tried to be half as reserved and discreet as Arken. His devotion seemed to be reason enough for the temple.

Arken respected Nero for one thing that he would never live down. When he was 17, he chased a bratty child into the forests that surrounded Kilika, trying to get him to calm down. The child had run home on his own after losing Nero, leaving the guardian in training to face a raging Lord Ochu. No one knew how he survived with only his thin sword gleaming at his side, but he returned that night covered in its blood. He glared wildly at the first person who looked at him, softening up only for his own mother who met him with wet rags.

Only 14 at the time, and very curious, Arken watched that night as he knelt in the water for his mother to wash him off. He sat in the circle of grime, hair hanging into his primal eyes. It was the most intense and warrior-like she had ever seen him in his 23 years of life.

Perhaps that's when her own eyes had gone hard, wanting to be like that. Having faced a fiend that gave even skilled warriors a pause, and returning with trophies of the battle. With a pride that made you want to roar with dominion.

"Guardians?" one of the crew members said, agitated. "You better get your summoner out here fast. We're not even halfway to Besaid, and we think t-that . . ."

"What?" Arken interjected, annoyed. "I know there's a storm upon us."

"It's not a storm," he spat, still trembling. "We think it's Sin."

Arken's well-constructed lie shot through her head. Sin attacking a boat. Everyone dying. Her mother, dying. Sinking like a doll into the glimmering blackness of the sea . . .

She rushed over to the bathroom door and rapped on it urgently. "Lady Feira!" she called.

There was a moan from within that sounded more embarrassed than ill. "Arken, don't come in," she groaned. "I'm a mess."

"Sin is approaching our ship!" she yelled through the rotting wood. "Clean yourself up and come out here so we can all stay together."

"I-I can't . . ."

Momentarily fed up with Feira's politeness, surely something that Yevon had ingrained in her, she shouldered the door violently. It gave a shudder, falling a bit off-center. She stood back and kicked it, watching the lock give way as it swung open. Feira jumped to her feet in the remaining space, looking at Arken in shock. Truly she was a mess–her hair was strewn about, and her facial features seemed to have sunk into her flesh.

But this was no time for caring about looks as the crew flailed about and the echoes of the captain's voice drifted below deck. Arken reached in and withdrew Feira swiftly, leaving her to struggle only after she was out. She was disoriented for a moment, but then realized that she wasn't going anywhere with her guardian holding her. So she let herself be steered to a side wall, where people were instructed to sit.

She swallowed a hard lump of humiliation and said to the figure floating above her who resembled Arken, "You didn't have to bust the door down."

"Yeah I did," Arken replied with a tiny smile. "It got you out, didn't it?"

A horrible noise disturbed their scene, and the ship rocked violently to one side. The wetness of the floor sent them all staggering, flailing for balance, and skidding into another wall. Arken's feet hit the wall first, cushioning the blow for her and Feira, and she clambered to stand again once the ship had righted itself.

"_It's Sin! It is Sin!_" a deckhand shouted, running by with a wild look of terror on his face. Feira's jaw fell slack in disbelief. Before anyone could get up and even think of jumping ship or something incredibly stupid, the ship rocked again. Arken's back hit the wall once more, and every muscle in her body went rigid with trying to protect Feira. But in the madness of it, she could barely feel the smaller girl in front of her.

That was why, when something bucked the ship and gave an incredible roar that shook everyone's souls, the world began to spin and fade at the edges. Sin was rising _under_ the ship, and somewhere within Arken's failing line of vision, its giant fin was cleaving the entire thing in half. It seemed like she was going blind and numb at the same time, so she didn't mind, until . . .

"ARKEN! _ARKEN!"_

. . . Feira's shrill cries snapped everything back into focus, just in time for her to slide away. How had Arken let her arms come undone? When had the summoner slipped away? Arken shrieked with the fear that she would fall right onto Sin and disappear, like grains of sand in the wind, but she tumbled right past Sin's protruding fin and onto one last falling chunk of ship.

"LADY FEIRA!" she heard Nero yell from somewhere off to the side, her vision blurring again. She made every last attempt to fight gravity and get over to where Feira was, clinging to a railing that kept her hanging like a ragdoll. But her last piece of salvation capsized, and Feira flipped off the edge without even a shout.

The wall that was supporting Arken crumbled right then, and she fell into an unstable darkness, staring suddenly at the carnage through a very different lens. Moonlight was playing across the surface of the water, and the detached feeling made her feel very . . . serene.

But she was anything but serene! Feira had just fallen into the water far away from her, at least the entire width of Sin. Whatever it was. Things had gone silent around her, and she struggled to get her bearings one last time. She heaved her face out of the water with a desperate gasp for air, and found herself floating in this unknown.

"ARKEN! Is that you?!" she heard Nero's voice yelling.

Her mouth sort of opened to reply, but nothing came forth. _Yes, maybe,_ her mind said vacantly. Sin's fin wagged out of her sight lazily, and though she wanted to chase it screaming a few choice words, her mind gave out. It didn't even want to look for Feira—it just blossomed into darkness, and her body followed along.


	4. Astray

Chapter Four –  
Astray

Arken's mind was alive with fear while her body drifted unconsciously. She was last terrified of two things—one, that she and Nero had become separated from Feira; and two, that she was going to die. That her body would stop knowing how to float and she would sink into the cold vastness of the sea, too far away from any land mass to see just how far she had to drift. This was her just reward for lying about her mother's death . . . and it was funny, almost, that it would happen the same way.

She had a dream while she was out from the shock of the blast. It was more like a memory, it seemed, that had underlying currents of warm familiarity. But in the visions were bleak colors, faces that would not smile at her. Her mother was in front of her; at least she thought it was her mother from how alike they looked. Despite the gray people around her who stared vacantly and contemptuously, her mother was smiling.

"Come here, Arken. Come to mommy," she said gently.

And while Arken was not in control of her body, she found her view changing as she took steps. She took a few before realizing that her mother was moving farther away from her, arms still extended, still crouched, still smiling. Didn't she know that she was vanishing?

"Mom," she croaked, but then she heard a smaller voice yell, "Mommy!"

It was her own again, the child who seemed to be overpowering the adult when she saw fit. She sounded distraught, like she was losing her mother. And she was. Her mother eventually got up and turned around, finding herself cast aside by a rifle butt to the cheek. The young Arken was screaming, no matter how much the present one wanted the shrillness to stop.

And then they were screaming together—for this to end, for the madness to stop. A blurry helmet of rich colors came into view, as though through a wall of flames, and gunfire punctured this isolated scene. Arken alone was screaming now. What was this? Was this . . . how her mother had died? When had this happened?

She knew those colors. Knew them. But where? Who?

"T-take . . . to temple," her mother moaned, rolling over in the dirt and her own spilling blood to point right at Arken. As the helmet lifted, possibly revealing eyes, a deep black curtain fell over her vision.

"Mother! Mother!" she was shrieking, thrashing around in the water. She was too busy flailing to realize that she could have drowned herself, but Nero was awake behind her, holding onto a splintered mass of wood. He was holding her with one arm that, to get her to snap out of it, he tightened around her neck. She sputtered and stopped immediately, letting her body go limp.

The uncomfortable expanse of sea and sky lay before her, not the hellish violence that had just been before her eyes. In reality, she preferred the solid and imaginary ground to this. "Nero," she whispered hoarsely, "I had a dream."

He rolled his eyes. "I can tell. Come on, get on." He hoisted her onto the makeshift raft that toppled back and forth with their combined weight, but sat still once they were centered. "Some wreckage is still floating about, and it seems like it's all in big pieces. I saw the engine drift by a while ago." Nervously, he swallowed. "You were . . . separated from Feira, weren't you."

It was more a confirmation than a question, and it made Arken that much more miserable to reply. "Yes. The impact threw her from me."

They sat for a second in silent fear of what could have happened to her, and then shifted about so they were more comfortable. It appeared they would be drifting for a while until they thought of a plan. "Damn!" Nero finally shouted. "Damn that Sin! Damn the Al Bhed for using their—their machina to bring ruin to all of Spira! Those damned, selfish fools . . ."

"Enough," Arken muttered. She had heard "damn the Al Bhed" this and "damn" that from him all her life, as though nothing outside of his little Yevon bubble could be right. But she didn't feel like telling him that, and so she rolled over onto one side. "Well. We were headed to Besaid. Which way were we facing when we were all sitting down?"

She thought for a moment and then added, shaking her head, "No, we could have been thrown any direction. That doesn't matter."

Nero looked up at the night sky; he could barely make out the stars. "I can see the North Star from here," he said to her. "So let's swim away from it. Besaid is south . . . west . . . ish. We'll find some sign eventually."

Though determination was sweeping an uncertain hand over him, Arken seemed to have a hard time following along. Normally _she_ was the one conducting operations, for one. And now she was slumping and putting her face in her hands, moaning loudly. "By Yevon, she was right in my arms," she said to her own flesh, now hot with her own breath. "_Right_ in my arms. And I wasn't strong enough to hold her."

Nero parted the wet fangs of his dark brown hair and moved towards her. "Arken, there was nothing you could have done. Everything was skidding around. Come on, you lost against gravity! Admit it!" He tried to crack a smile, force a chuckle through it.

"I lost to Sin," she muttered. "I don't even know if Lady Feira can swim!"

He clapped her shoulder hard, meant to be more of a wake-up call than a sign of comfort. "We grew up in Kilika, where people play blitzball and fish all day. Babies are birthed in the water, and the dead are sent in the water. For Yevon's sake, I think she's learned how to swim at _some_ point."

She sat upright a little bit, brushing off his hand with half of her usual vigor. He was right, but she just couldn't shake her feelings of dread. What if Feira didn't make it to Besaid, or made it somewhere odd like Luca? Where someone could make off with her for Yevon knew what? The possibilities made her shudder. "Let's just try and head for Besaid, see if she's there," she muttered.

Nero got to the front end of the raft and spread his arms out, dipping them both into the water. He had to adjust less, but he still grimaced; he didn't want to be wet any longer, but neither did he want to be stranded. Arken mimicked him at the end, and they both began to heave their way through the choppy, unwelcoming waves.

They paddled like this in relative silence for about half an hour, and had gained enough momentum that they could push off and rest for a bit while they drifted. But the tide was running in a totally different direction, so if they lingered for too long they would be thrown horribly off-course. As though they really had a course to begin with.

At about daybreak, Nero simply collapsed in a bowing position and his arms still dunked in the water. His head had hit the planks with an uncomfortable _thud,_ which made Arken wince with a small grin. She stopped immediately and pulled him back into her lap. His eyes were closed and his jaw slack—he was completely exhausted. She had no idea how long he had been alert and waiting for her to stir earlier, but it was all catching up to him now.

_We've been at this for hours and no sign of land,_ she thought wearily._How far have we come from wherever we were between Kilika and Besaid? Is it really that long a distance, or are we just idiots astray?_

_Guardians who can barely guard . . . she cannot make this alone._

It was another two or so hours at her steady pace when a small strip of white rolled into view. At first she thought it was only the sun rising upon the water and playing tricks on her eyes, but then she realized that it was sand of the purest white. It wasn't moving away, and it wasn't a mirage. "Nero!" she gasped, beginning to paddle harder for the life of her. "Nero, it's Besaid! Well, it might be, but it's land!"

He moaned beside her, head lolling back and forth. He might have heard her, but it was hard to say—regardless, she carried them on as though nothing else mattered. As though she herself might collapse at the end of the line, but she would wake up sooner or later. She just wanted to know that there was ground beneath her feet when that happened.

The sea was just one big colorful blur before her eyes as she made for shore, and let herself be carried to it by the waves when she felt the raft sliding along on the ground. She actually tumbled right off the raft and into the warm, fine sand when they stopped. Voices drifted to her from nearby, and they were the sweetest things she had heard in years. Screw the soft whispering of the waves by her feet; she was sick of the water. Sick of it lapping near her, taunting her inside its grip.

"Hey!" someone called from a distance. She smiled—a voice that was not Nero's, or her own. In a perfect world, Feira would be waiting right where Arken had skidded to a halt, her warm hands cushioning the fall. But Spira was far from perfect, and instead she was in the warmth of the sand, and someone very un-Feira-like was rushing towards her. Her hair succumbed to gravity all around her face, hiding the smile that belied how awful she and Nero looked.

All she could think, as the sand began to stick to her wet skin, that this was the closest she'd come to the Farplane's beauty in her whole life. Years of being cast out from the temple community, silently but clearly, redeemed as she sat wound in the rays of the sun. A hand put itself on the small of her back, shaking her frantically. "Are you all right? Hey!"

It was a woman, all right, who sounded a bit like Nero's mother – but there was no way that they had wound up back at Kilika, unrecognized. At last Arken planted her hands down firmly, taking up fistfuls of cool sand, and lifted her head just enough past her quaking shoulders to meet the woman. Their eyes collided in the day's brightness, and there came a sigh of relief from beyond. "Oh, thank Yevon you're alive," she breathed. "You gave this poor heart such a scare; I thought you was some ship wreckage all spoilt and dead."

Arken paused for a moment at the morbid humor of it. It seemed to just be following her everywhere on this pilgrimage; perhaps it had slipped into her pack without her knowing? "We _are_ ship wreckage," she finally replied, spitting out some salt water. "Sin attacked our ship. We hail from Kilika." Another spit.

The woman's eyes went wide with terror, and she withdrew her hands to cup them over her mouth. Her face tensed up as though she would scream. "Sin, attacking so close? Oh, we're all done for," she muttered, shaking side-to-side rhythmically.

_Oh, please,_ Arken thought as she watched. She had seen plenty of old temple folk doing this in her lifetime, and knew they had been doing this since before she was born, always talking of how it was the end of the world. How the Al Bhed had led them astray into darkness and despair, blah blah blah . . . so she rose to her feet, still shaking a bit at the change from sea to solid land, and cupped the woman's shoulders firmly. "Rise and look at me, ma'am," she ordered.

She stopped her banter in surprise and stood up straight, lifting her face out of her hands to peer intently at Arken. "That's better." Pain and fatigue swam in the guardian's eyes, but the rest of her said that she would not let this sway her from the pilgrimage at all. "Where are we, exactly?" she asked calmly.

"The Isle of Besaid," answered the woman.

Arken's heart leapt up in hope. Desperately she wanted to know if Feira was here, but it would have to wait until her savior was at rest. "Has Sin ever attacked Besaid? Ever?"

"Well, no," she said uneasily. "But—"

"Then you're going to have to live as though it never will," she interrupted coolly, turning on a heel. "I have one last question to ask you."

"Yes?"

"Did a young summoner named Feira come through here? Sandy robes, short brown hair . . ." When the woman's face struggled to show her an answer, she added in a desperate haste, "We are her guardians. We were separated in coming here to begin with."

"No," she sighed. "You are the first visitors we've had in a while."

Arken pushed her fingers through her hair in frustration, staring at Nero still unconscious on the raft. How serene he looked, never to know that one representative of Besaid was enough, full of worry as she was. How innocent he was. And here she stood, head swimming with fog and limbs weary, trying to keep hope alive. She had left hope treading water the second she passed out in the carnage.

_What to do?_ she asked herself, staring at the neverending waves and the glittering sunbeams upon them. To give up, to wait here, to look for Feira? Giving up was not an option, not at this point . . . it was like throwing their lives away. If she'd never heard of summoners and guardians returning home to utter failure, she surely would now if this were the end. Waiting in Besaid was an option, relying entirely on the fact that Feira was determined and clever, and still willing to continue with her pilgrimage. Looking for her was an even better option, though it branched off into the possibility of _never_ finding her in the vast expanse of sea between here and Kilika. No one knew which direction she had gone.

At last she turned to the woman again and said – not asked, "We need to borrow a small boat to find our summoner with. I cannot simply sit here and pray she's clever enough to get here on her own."

The woman looked at her in shock and snapped, "You said you came from_where?_ Folk from Kilika sure are rude!" Her fists balled on her skirt, pulling it higher up onto her waist.

"Perhaps you don't understand me," Arken said, nonplussed. "We are guardians and our summoner is _lost._ If you don't lend me a boat, I'm going to have to slay you here on this sand and take one myself." Here she drew her sword from its sheath, steadying it with both hands. As she turned it to gleam in the sun, the woman let out a scream and clutched at her chest, hands wringing the fabric of her shirt. "I apologize for setting the wrong image of Kilika into your head; we're really a nice bunch of people who like Blitzball. But I am on a mission, and I give you my word that I will return the ship when we find Feira."

In her horror it was difficult for the woman to respond, but she finally came out with, "A-all right. You see that boat over there, under the dock?" She pointed to a small dock nestled up against a cliffside, and a fishing boat bobbing underneath it. A streamer of orange fabric lolled in the water beside it, tied to the front end to distinguish it. "That belongs to my husband."

She hadn't said a syllable more when Arken swept from her side, sheathing her blade, and made off down the beach again for Nero. Her strides were wide and with purpose, but when she stooped to recover him from their makeshift raft, it was slow and with the utmost caution. She sagged under his weight as she held him like a new bride about to be carried over her husband's threshold. It was an awkward image, but there wasn't a better one to be found anywhere on the island.

She said no word of gratitude as she made her way for the docks, wading into the water to place Nero in the boat gently. Deftly she hopped in at the head of it, crouching uncomfortably – it was too narrow for her to spread her knees too far apart, and the boat was almost as long as she was tall. She hadn't asked for deluxe accomodations, and precious time was wasting; she untethered the boat from the dock and gave it the hardest push she could. Her muscles burned with the memory of paddling endlessly, and her face showed it. For now she would have to take up the single oar and push through that pain, heading into the blinding sunlight.

The Besaid woman looked on until the boat was indistinguishable from the flickers of light on the waves, then turned briskly and headed for home. The village was the only home she'd ever known, and here were these hot-shot guardians, thinking that the mission was the only thing important to them. She had seen summoners fall, right in Besaid's heart! Valefor had rejected the youngest of the crop, and slain them where they stood. It wrenched her soul from her body.

Seeing Arken so alive with determination was a sight that made her physically ill, and no calming whispers of the waterfalls could set her right. There was no remedy for losing a child to the delusions of the fayth.

Her eyes lifted as though possessed to the rainbows created by the largest of the waterfalls, turning away from the squat blue huts of the village that lay not too far beyond, and she murmured, "Oh, Elsie . . ."


End file.
